Neural versus traditional approaches to the location of interacting hub facilities

Abstract

In this paper we consider the optimal location of interacting hub facilities. Using the well-known quadratic integer programming formulation of the uncapacitated, single allocation, p-hub median problem (USApHMP), we demonstrate a mapping onto a Hopfield neural network which guarantees feasibility of the final solution. We also propose a novel modification to the Hopfield network which enables escape from local minima, thus improving final solution quality. A practical application of the USApHMP-a postal delivery network-is used to demonstrate that the quality of these Hopfield network solutions compares favorably to those obtained using both exact methods and simulated annealing. Well-known..